Nelson FC beat Stockport Georgians 3-2 on Saturday in the FA Cup Preliminary Qualifying Round, one of 208 ties played that day, launching their campaign from a ground locals call 'Little Wembley'.
The ground sits in east Lancashire beside Pendle Water, the river that once powered the local cotton mill whose 200ft chimney and stone workers' cottages form the backdrop to the pitch. Groundsman Trevor Stamworth was marking out the pitch by 11am, with water piped in from the river to keep the surface in shape.
Nelson holds a small but significant place in football history. In 1923, during a tour of Spain, the club beat Real Madrid 4-2, becoming the first British side to beat Real Madrid on their own turf. Sepia photographs of that win hang in the club's small bar.
Manager Arron Ripley, 32, arrived at 1pm to lay out the team's jerseys and prepare a pep talk reminding his players that only one in 3,400 people in Britain get to play in the FA Cup. Ripley said his staff look for small details that might make a difference, including an analyst friend who edits clips for players and GPS vests used at every game, though the club's video recorder is currently broken.
Rescued from the brink
Two years ago Nelson was in financial peril. The pitch flooded regularly, the team lost almost every week, and barely 50 fans came through the gate. Local businessman Chris Price, who runs an industrial cleaning firm, and engineering entrepreneur Stewart Fort bought the club for close to £30,000, aiming to move it from the tenth tier to the eighth-tier Northern Premier League.
The club has since built a new shop and stand from converted shipping containers, a timber-built food facility and a small Sponsors Lounge. Price and Fort estimate they have put in £700,000 so far, with the Football Association contributing £162,000 of that.
Nelson narrowly avoided relegation to the West Lancashire League, spared only when another club folded, before winning promotion to the North West Counties Premier Division last season. They have started this season with a win, and talk inside the club is of another promotion push. The owners have spent £32,000 on pitch drainage and £52,000 on new dressing rooms, though seven of the ground's eight floodlights have recently failed and contractors are working to get new cables laid.
Money the Cup can bring
Players at this level are paid an average of £100 a week, and Fort said the money the club raises from advertising boards directly funds what Ripley can spend on players. Fort said reaching the First Round Proper would earn the club nearly £25,000, a sum that would make a massive difference. He recalled shifting 27 tons of muck out of the goalmouths to flatten the pitch, and said the bigger goal is getting around 260 people through the turnstiles every week.
Ripley said he feels the pressure of that ambition personally. He was sacked just before Christmas 2024 after five straight losses, but was reinstated after his replacement failed to win promotion, and led the club up last season. This is Nelson's first FA Cup appearance since 2017, as ninth-tier clubs are the lowest level allowed to enter. Ripley said winning on Saturday would bring in over £1,000, all of which goes into the club pot.
Ripley described his approach as very locally driven, with only one player in his squad living more than half an hour from Nelson. He is part-time himself, working as a digital project manager for filling station operator EG, but had watched Stockport Georgians beat Wythenshawe Town in the Midland League Premier a few days before the tie.
Nelson edge past Stockport Georgians
The preparation showed. Nelson were stronger and quicker to the ball, with centre forward Sefton Gonzales, who works as a storeman, a constant threat. Lewis Brown put the hosts ahead before Stockport's Lucas Berry, a former Salford City academy player, equalised.
Luke Hepple restored Nelson's lead before Berry spun and scored again to level the game at 2-2. Gonzales settled it, controlling in tight space to fire home the winner before celebrating with a backflip from his 6ft 2in frame, sealing a 3-2 win.
Next stop, Witton Albion
The result flashed up on the club's new digital screen, which displays an image of the FA Cup. Eric Manning, 87, whose handwritten match reports are typed up and published in the weekly Nelson Leader, can reflect on history repeating itself.
Nelson now play eighth-tier Witton Albion in the Preliminary Round. The two clubs met in 1951, when Nelson beat Witton Albion on their way to a 3-2 defeat at Port Vale in one of the club's most memorable Cup runs. Manning missed that Port Vale game because his parents insisted on taking him on holiday.
A 50-year-old project
The visit to Nelson opens a new series marking 50 years since Daily Mail football writer Brian James began the project that became his book Journey to Wembley, following a club from the Preliminary Qualifying Round through the competition until it loses, then switching allegiance to the side that beat it, all the way to the final.
Nelson also holds a 100 per cent home record against Manchester United, having beaten them once in the old Second Division and never played them since. Price said the club invited Manchester United to play again to test that record, but they politely declined. Price said Nelson wants people to know what is happening at the club, adding that they believe that if they build it, people will come.
